The Wall Street Journal reports, “President Barack Obama’s budget proposal is expected to give states a way to collect more payroll taxes from businesses, in an effort to replenish the unemployment-insurance program. . . . The proposal would aim to restock strained state unemployment-insurance trust funds by raising the amount of wages on which companies must pay unemployment taxes to $15,000, more than double the $7,000 in place since 1983.”

The Journal notes, “The plan could cause controversy at a time when the administration is seeking to mend fences with corporate America.” In fact, it was just Monday that President Obama spoke in front of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he said, “Ask yourselves what you can do to hire more American workers, what you can do to support the American economy and invest in this nation . . . .”

And yet Obama is now proposing a budget that would raise taxes on job creators. Meanwhile, Reuters notes that the hike on unemployment taxes isn’t the only tax increase being considered in the president’s budget. “Corporate America is expecting a revival of proposals to tighten international tax rules in President Barack Obama’s proposed 2012 budget, to be released on Monday.”

Among the tax increases being proposed, Reuters reports, are several on oil, gas and coal companies that are expected to generate $38 billion. And just yesterday, Senate Democrats wrote to the White House urging a similar tax increase of “more than $20 billion.”

This push from Democrats to raise taxes on energy production comes at a time of record gas prices. According to Politico’s Morning Energy yesterday, “The average price of regular gasoline in the U.S. is higher now than in any other February in history, according to new data released yesterday by the Energy Information Administration.”

Although President Obama urged, “We need to make America the best place on Earth to do business,” he’s now proposing new taxes on small businesses and larger corporations, making it ever more expensive and difficult to hire new workers. If the president and Democrats in Congress want to create jobs, why are they proposing tax hikes that will make job creation more difficult?

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